The skills section is the most ATS-visible part of your resume, and the easiest to get wrong — either a 40-item dump with no signal, or a handful of vague soft skills with none of the tools recruiters search for.
What belongs here
Hard skills, tools, and certifications you can speak to in an interview — languages, platforms, methodologies specific to your field. Soft skills (“communication,” “teamwork”) belong in your bullets as demonstrated behavior, not as a list item.
How to organize it
Group into 2-4 short categories (e.g. “Languages,” “Tools,” “Certifications”) rather than one long flat list — it reads faster and lets a recruiter find the one skill they’re scanning for. Order categories by relevance to the job, not alphabetically.
Match it to the job description
Mirror the exact tool names a posting uses — “Postgres” vs. “SQL,” “GA4” vs. “Google Analytics” — since ATS keyword matching is often literal. Map the JD first, then check your draft with the ATS checker.
Skip
- Skill-rating bars or star graphics — most ATS can’t read them
- Tools you used once years ago and can’t discuss
- Anything that isn’t backed up somewhere else on the page
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